[Frameworks] Patricia R. Zimmermann

[Nina Fonoroff]

 Scott and everyone,

I was so shocked to hear the news of Patty Zimmerman's death. Though I didn't know her well, our paths crossed from time to time at the Flaherty and other events, and I loved our (too brief) conversations, and her presence in these places. 

I was so often moved and inspired by her writing, and frequently shared it with my students and colleagues. The independent film community has sustained a significant loss by her death. We must continue.

Nina Fonoroff

   On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 06:53:27 AM MDT, Scott MacDonald <smacdona at hamilton.edu> wrote:  
 
 Dear FRAMEWORKERS,

Theunexpected death of Patricia R. Zimmermann on August 17th shockedthose of us who were close to her and is a major loss for the world ofindependent cinema and the field of Cinema and Media Studies. Zimmermann, theCharles A. Dana Professor of Screen Studies, Media Arts, Sciences and Studiesat Ithaca College, was a charismatic college professor. a remarkably productivescholar, and for the past 19 years, the director of the Finger LakesEnvironmental Film Festival (FLEFF). 

Zimmermann’sscholarship was broad ranging. Her Reel Families: A Social History ofAmateur Film (Indiana, 1995) and the collection, Mining the Home Movie: Excavationsin Histories and Memory (California, 2008), a collaboration with Karen L.Ishizuka, were breakthroughs in the exploration of vernacular cinemas. 

Along-time veteran of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, Zimmermann collaboratedwith Erik Barnouw on The Flaherty: Four Decades in the Cause of IndependentCinema (1995, a meta-issue of the journal Wide Angle, edited by RuthBradley); and with me, on The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of IndependentCinema (Indiana, 2017), and Flash Flaherty: Tales from a Film Seminar(Indiana, 2021), a collection of 102 stories by Flaherty veterans, spanning the7 decades of the seminar.

            During the 2000s, she explored newmedia and the continuing struggle of independent filmmakers, especiallydocumentary filmmakers, within an evolving technological world, in States ofEmergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies (2000); Thinking ThroughDigital Media: Transnational Environments and Locative Places, co-editedwith Dale Hudson (2015); and Documentary Across Platforms: ReverseEngineering Media, Place and Politics (2019).

Heressay on William Greaves’ Ralph Bunche project was a capstone for WilliamGreaves: Filmmaking as Mission (2021, eds., Jacqueline Stewart andMacDonald).

            Under Zimmermann’s leadership theFinger Lakes Environmental Film Festival grew from a regional event into anational and international event, expanding beyond film to feature new media,art installations and exhibitions, music, scholars across many disciplines,archives, writers, filmmakers, artists, musicians, activists, policy analysts,and public health professionals.

            Up until her death, Zimmermanncontinued to lecture widely, in North America and Europe. She helped establishand was Editor at Large for the on-line journal The Edge, published bythe Park Center for Independent Media. She served on the editorial board of FilmQuarterly, and, during the summer of 2023, was actively involved withindependent film/photography exhibitors across central New York State working tobuild a network of sites where independent image artists could show their work.

            Zimmermann’s unabated, forthrightenergy and her kindness and camaraderie with colleagues across the world madeher among the best-known and admired contributors to Cinema and Media Studiesand to the expansion of opportunities to see and produce independent media. Itis difficult to imagine a world without her. 




RIP, dear Patty.

Scott MacDonald

            

 
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